UBS Trader Charged With Fraud

Posted on Sep 17, 2011

The trader arrested on suspicion of costing Swiss banking giant UBS more than $2 billion in unauthorized trades was charged Friday with fraud and two counts of false accounting dating as far back as 2008.

Charges against 31-year-old Kweku Adoboli said that he “dishonestly abused” his power as a senior trader, a role court documents said was meant “to safeguard, or not to act against, the financial interests of UBS.”

Adoboli will be kept in custody until Sept. 22, when the court said he could apply for bail. —BF

Bloomberg Businessweek:

Adoboli worked for UBS’s investment bank on its Delta One desk, which handles trades for clients, typically helping them to speculate on or hedge the performance of a basket of securities. The group also takes risks with the bank’s own money in arranging trades. UBS has said that no client positions were affected.

He hired criminal law firm Kingsley Napley LLP in London to represent him. Lawyers from the same firm advised Nick Leeson, the former derivatives trader who caused the collapse of Barings Plc with $1.4 billion in losses in 1995.

Adoboli wore a sky-blue sweater over a white shirt for his appearance in court yesterday and didn’t speak apart from confirming his name and date of birth. He didn’t enter a plea. Kingsley Napley said in an e-mailed statement yesterday that it wouldn’t comment on behalf of its client.